The Land (5 page)

“He all right?” asked Mitchell, on his feet now.

Without looking at him, I shook my head. “Don't know. We got to get him back to the barn.”

“Your daddy's gonna kill me,” he said solemnly, yet with no fear in his voice, just a voice of matter of fact. “Course now, my daddy get t' me first, he'll do it. Don't blame him this time if he do, though, 'cause he's gonna lose his job sure once your daddy see that horse.”

I just looked at Mitchell and took the reins. “Come on. Let's get him back.”

Mitchell nodded and, for the first time, followed my lead.

 

Willie Thomas was waiting for us when we got back to the barn. “Ah, Lord, what done happened?” he asked, rushing over to the limping stallion. Willie stooped and examined the stallion's foreleg, then straightened and glared accusingly at Mitchell. “Boy, you got somethin' t' do wit' this?”

Mitchell looked at him sulkily. “You'd think I did even if I ain't.”

“You tell me, boy! You been on this stallion?”

“And so what if I was?”

Willie Thomas hauled off and slapped Mitchell across the face with the back of his hand. “Don't ya get smart wit' me!” Mitchell turned his head at the impact, but he didn't fall back. It was as if he had already braced himself for the attack. “You done had somethin' t' do wit' this here stallion bein' cut up, I knows it!” Willie raved on. “You had somethin' t' do wit' it, I gets the blame, and I lose my good job! Tell me what ya done!”

Mitchell stared coldly at his daddy. He said nothing. I stared at them both, fearful of what was to come. Next thing, Willie Thomas pulled a whip from the barn wall. It was then that my daddy came riding up on one of his mares. He took one look at Willie Thomas holding the whip, another at Mitchell and me, then his eyes settled on Ghost Wind. He dismounted and walked over to the stallion. Unlike Willie, he didn't inspect the stallion's leg. He just glanced at it, then turned to face the three of us. “So, what's happened to my horse?”

None of us spoke right up. I knew that was because we all had the same fear. My daddy's voice was soft, but we knew his mind. That was his prized horse standing there bleeding, and we knew he wasn't about to take that lightly.

“I asked a question,” said my daddy, and his voice was still low. “I expect an answer.” He looked straight at Mitchell's daddy. “Willie?”

Willie Thomas eyed his son, then cleared his throat. “W-well, now, Mister Edward,” he began, not looking at my daddy but at Ghost Wind instead, “th-these here two boys jus' done brought this here stallion from them woods yonder, and they done brung him back all torn up like this. Seem like t' me Mitchell, he done rode this horse knowin' he ain't s'pose t', and I done told him that time and time again—”

My daddy cut him off. “How bad is he hurt?”

Willie Thomas now looked at my daddy. “Muscle all torn up on this leg here,” he said, moving toward the stallion's right foreleg. “Don't know if it'll heal or not. Now, I can tend t' it, but I can't go lyin' and sayin' it'll heal like it's s'pose t'.”

“What else?” demanded my daddy, glancing at the scratches.

Willie Thomas followed his look. “Well, them there, they'll heal all right. It's jus' that leg I ain't so sure of.” He turned to my daddy. “It's my boy Mitchell done this, Mister Edward, and I know there ain't no way t' make it up t' ya if this here horse don't heal right, but I jus' 'bout t' put a strap t' Mitchell my own self 'bout what he done. I'm gonna put a strap t' him right now, matter of fact!” With that said, he positioned his whip and turned toward Mitchell.

“But it wasn't Mitchell!” I blurted out, stopping him and surprising myself. After all Mitchell had put me through, I shouldn't have cared if he got whipped or not. “Wasn't Mitchell rode that horse! It was me!”

Willie Thomas's whip stopped in midair and my daddy's gaze turned from Willie to me. Mitchell, though, stood stock-still. He didn't look at his daddy, he didn't look at my daddy, and he didn't look at me. He was gazing off somewhere else.

“You?” questioned my daddy. “Paul, you did this?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, looking straight at him. “I did.”

My daddy took a breath deep, then walked around Ghost Wind, inspecting him long and hard this time, before he came back and stood right in front of me. “Paul,” he said to me, “you're a good horseman, one of the best I've ever seen, and you know how to handle Ghost Wind. Now you going to stand here and tell me you rode this horse and let this happen to him?”

I looked straight up at my daddy and lied again. “Yes, sir.”

“How?”

“Sir?”

“How'd it happened?”

I glanced at Willie Thomas, still holding the strap, and at Mitchell, still looking off to God knew where. Then my eyes turned again to my daddy. “He . . . well, he just got away from me, Mister Edward,” I said. “Ghost Wind . . . he . . . he was just too much horse for me, I reckon.”

After I said that, there was only silence. My daddy's look pierced me; then he moved back to the stallion and stooped to take another look at his leg. He motioned Willie Thomas over. “Looks like to me,” he said, “the leg's not that torn up. It should heal in time.”

Willie, too, again studied the leg. “Yes, suh, I believes so,” he agreed. “But not time 'nough for them races you was plannin' on.”

My daddy straightened and nodded. “You just do what you need to do to make him right.”

“Yes, suh.”

“And, Willie . . .”

“Yes, suh?”

“Put that whip away. Paul says he rode the stallion. That's all I need to know.”

Willie Thomas bit his lip, looked at Mitchell, then back at my daddy and said quietly, “Yes, suh.” My daddy nodded as if an understanding had just been struck, and watched as Willie Thomas hung the whip back on the wall.

Then my daddy turned to me. “Paul, you come with me,” he said, and left the barn.

I glanced again at Willie Thomas, but he didn't look at me. He turned his attention instead back to the stallion. I looked then at Mitchell, and for the first time he was looking at me, but I couldn't read his eyes.

“Paul!”

I hurried after my daddy. When I caught up with him, I walked alongside him in silence until we were almost at the house before I said, “I s'pose you real mad at me.”

“Not real happy with you.”

“Well . . . I'm sorry about riding Ghost Wind that way. I . . . I won't do it again.”

“Yes, I know you won't.”

“You going to whip me?”

My daddy stopped and looked at me. “No,” he said. “I'm not going to whip you, Paul. No, your punishment is that you'll never get to ride Ghost Wind again. I figure you'll remember that a whole lot longer than a whipping. You won't ride any of the other horses either, including the Appaloosa, until I say so.”

“But, Mister Edward—”

“You were responsible for that stallion, and you let this happen.”

“But—”

“It's finished, boy. Don't you think I know it was Mitchell rode that horse? Now you've got to pay the price for it.”

 

It wasn't until the next day I saw Mitchell again. “You get a whippin' for ridin' that stallion?” he asked as I made my way through the woods toward the creek.

I shook my head. “No. Just can't ride Ghost Wind anymore.”

Mitchell glanced sideways at me, almost as if he felt bad about my predicament. “That bad as a whippin'?”

“Worse.”

He shrugged. “Maybe so. Whippin', I s'pose, you get it over and done wit'.”

“That's how I see it,” I said, and started away.

“'Ey, Paul!” Mitchell called after me. “Anyways, you still get t' ride your own horse, that Appaloosa. So not ridin' Ghost Wind, that ain't so bad.”

I turned and looked back at him. “No . . . don't get to ride him either, or any other horse . . . not 'til my daddy says I can. He was plenty mad.”

“Had a right t' be,” Mitchell conceded, “way that stallion was all scratched up and bruised. You know, my daddy was 'fraid he was gonna lose his job 'cause-a what I done.”

“I know.”

“Wouldn't've had t' be,” he said, eyeing me in his old belligerent way, “he ain't been so scairt of your white daddy.”

I looked him straight. “I know.”

Mitchell seemed to relent.

I nodded and turned again to go.

“Paul,” Mitchell called after me one final time. “You know my daddy would've near t' killed me, he'd've known for sure I'd been ridin' that stallion. I'd've taken the whippin', mind ya, but he would've near t' killed me.”

“Then good thing you weren't riding Ghost Wind, isn't it?” I said.

Mitchell nodded, and that was as close as Mitchell Thomas came to thanking me and as close as I came to accepting his thanks. But after that, things began to change between Mitchell and me. Now, we still weren't the best of friends, but there was a new respect building. I believe that both of us were realizing that our judgments of each other were not truly founded. Each of us had something to him the other hadn't seen before, and out of this realization came a real respect, not just a truce.

I loved my daddy's land. In the beginning I always thought of it as my land too. I knew every bit of the place. I knew every bit of lowland, every rise and knoll, every cave and watering place, every kind of plant and tree. My favorite spots were the pond nestled in the woods and a hillside that overlooked the pasture and my daddy's house. The pond was surrounded by big old pines that allowed splinters of light to peek through, and its waters were filled with fish. The hillside boasted only a few trees, so it was sunny and open, and the pasture below was dotted with cows and horses grazing. On many days I would sit for hours alone at either place just gazing out over the land. Whenever my family was needing me and I couldn't be found near my daddy's or my mama's house, they knew where to look for me.

Now, one of my favorite things to do was read, and I was always reading anything I could get my hands on. I especially liked reading by that pond, and when I wasn't fishing there with Robert, I usually took a book with me. People began to expect that of me. Once, though, my reading got me into more trouble with some of the colored boys on the place, and it was Mitchell who got me out of it. Those boys came along and started picking on me. There were four of them, and since my brothers weren't around and, at the moment, neither was Mitchell, I suppose they figured they could get away with it.

“Jus' look at that little nigger white boy sittin' there on the bank got nothin' t' do,” said a boy I recognized as R. T. Roberts. “Got nothin' t' do but sit there lookin' at some fool book.”

“Well, if I had me a white daddy who own the place, 'spect I wouldn't have nothin' t' do neither,” said another.

I glanced up at them, but I said nothing.

“Let's see jus' what ya got there, nigger white boy,” said R.T. Then he grabbed the book right out of my hands. That's when I jumped up, but I still said nothing. “Now, let's see what this here is.” R.T. flipped through the pages.

“Got no pictures,” observed one of the boys.

“What's them words?” asked another, peering over.

“Don't know,” said R.T. “Jus' know they white folks' words.” Then he looked at me. “What ya doin' usin' white folks' words, boy?” he barked at me, imitating the way I'd heard white men speak to black folks. He and the other boys broke into laughter.

“It's called English,” I said, breaking my silence. “Anybody wants to read it can learn to read it.”

The boys scoffed at my words. “So, maybe you want t' teach us, same as you teachin' Mitchell, huh?”

I shrugged. “You want to learn, I will.”

“Yeah . . .” sneered another. “We got our own schools now, and we wanted t' learn any of that stuff, we'd be goin' there. We'd hardly be takin' any teachin' from the likes of you. You with yo' white daddy.”

By now I was tired of folks putting me down because of my daddy. My daddy was a white man and there was nothing I could do about it, so I figured I might as well make use of the fact. “That's right,” I said. “I've got a white daddy, all right, and you're standing on his land. Maybe you'd like to get off it.”

The boy who had made the remark about my daddy stepped toward me, but R.T. put up his hand and stopped him. “Now wait a minute, wait a minute,” he said. “Maybe this here boy Paul gots a point 'bout readin'. Maybe he can teach us somethin'. Let's see now . . . maybe he can teach us how t' read this here—” He tore a page from the book and thrust it at me.

“Don't do that!” I cried.

“Or maybe this one here.” Another boy ripped out a second page.

“Stop it!”

“Ya know somethin'?” said R.T. “I don't much like this book no ways, seein' it ain't got no pictures, and what I don't like, I don't tolerate!” Then he grabbed a handful of pages and tore them from the binding.

With that I threw myself at R.T., punching him with all my might. I had learned how to fight well enough to defend myself, but I certainly wasn't capable of fighting four boys at once, and they let me know that too. They laughed and all of them had a shot at me—that is, until Mitchell Thomas came along. There was a sudden silence before I even knew Mitchell was there. All I knew was that R.T., who was beating at my face, was suddenly jerked away, and laid out flat to the ground with a thunderous pop. Then I saw Mitchell through the slit of my swollen eye. He stood over R.T. and pointed to me. “Now, anybody want at this boy'll hafta fight me,” he said calmly.